I was driving to work one Friday morning two weeks ago, and
only yards from my house on my own street I felt a bump under my car. I froze and looked in my rear view mirror to see an
orange cat flailing in the road behind me. It quickly ran across the street
into a neighbor’s yard, and a nauseous feeling swelled in my stomach.
A cat had literally ran underneath my car—I didn’t see
it and I didn’t even have time react and try to slow down, much less avoid it.
Luckily I wasn’t going very fast, since it’s a narrow residential road, but I
immediately felt tears well up in my eyes because I didn’t know if the cat was
okay or not. A million things were running through my mind. Where is the cat
now? Oh, no, I hope I can find it! What vet will I take it to? It's Friday, so our
staff vet and vet techs wouldn’t be at work that day so I’d have to see if a local vet would
help me. Who does the cat belong to? I work at a humane society and commit every day
to helping animals—how could I, of all people, have just hit a cat?!
I stopped my car on the street and jumped out to try to find
the cat. Two ladies were on their morning walks close by, so I asked if they’d
seen where the cat went. One didn't respond and walked away unphased, while the other showed me where she saw it.
She frustrated me because she didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal to find it,
which made me angry. She said, “You’re so sweet--I can’t believe you actually
stopped!” I thought, who wouldn’t stop?
But I also knew the answer to that. Not everyone feels as passionate about
the well-being of animals, nor would some people know what to do if they did stop.
We found an orange cat in the yard near where I had hit the cat, but it didn’t seem to be hurt. It was walking around slowly but okay, and it was looking at me like, “What do you want, and why are you staring at me?” I stayed there to watch it for a few minutes to see if it was okay or if I needed to go home and grab a crate to take it to the vet. It had a collar but no tag, so I couldn’t try to contact the owner. It was in a yard, but I didn’t know which house it actually belonged to because the street is lined with homes on both sides. It seemed okay, and I looked around a little longer to see if I saw any other orange cats but didn’t find any. Maybe since I was going slow, I didn’t actually run over it—it happened so fast that I didn’t really know if I had hit it with my tire or not.
I left reluctantly and still in tears, wondering if there
was anything else I could do at that point. I really didn’t have any other
options, so I went to work. As soon as I got to work, I posted an email to my
neighborhood listserv to try to let the owner know what happened and to tell
everyone to keep a lookout for any orange cats who may be hurt and need to
go to the vet. I have still yet to get a response from anyone on the listserv
concerning the cat. (It's a vocal listserv, so I was very surprised that not one person said anything.) My only hope is that I really didn’t hurt the cat and that
it was a close call for it.
As horrible as the experience was, thinking about it makes
me angry. For one thing, this isn’t the first time a cat has run
out in front of me on my road or neighborhood. I drive slow around here because
so there are so many outdoor cats, and I’ve had to slam on my brakes to avoid
them countless times over the last few years. Though my neighborhood seems
quaint and slow-moving at first glance, it is surrounded closely by some of the
busiest roads in my area and is very close to downtown. It angers me that people think
it’s okay to have so many indoor-outdoor, or just outdoor, cats around here
when there are so many cars and other dangers.
On a side note, it’s a historic area with some
expensive homes, so it goes to show that those with more money don’t
necessarily care for their animals or think about their well-being more than
anyone else does (as I tend to hear people speculate about at adoption events).
The other thing that bothers me is that the cat didn’t have
any identification, so if it were hurt and I had taken it to the vet, I would
have no idea who it belonged to contact them. (It was wearing a collar but no tag--defeating the main purpose of a cat collar.) I couldn’t even contact them to
let them know to keep an eye on the cat because it may have been the one I hit—and
to let them know it might be a good idea to keep it indoors since it clearly
isn’t avoiding cars in the street.
There are so many dangers to having pets outdoors,
especially in a city area. It angers me that this cat was outside to begin with
and that this awful situation could have so easily been completely avoided. I
am even more nervous about watching for animals on my road now, but all I can do is
pay attention and go the speed limit or below. I can’t blame myself for a cat darting
under my car, but it doesn’t take away the horrible emotions of being put in
that situation.
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